Sounds like you're as busy as a cat covering poop on a marble floor - like I stay ALL the time. On mosaicing your butterfly, can't you just work in smaller pieces to get around the difficult areas? A picture w/be welcome here. I'm hoping to hang my "Lantern Experiment" this evening when my yard man comes and helps hang the arm it'll hang on and close the S hooks. I'll NEVER attempt to build something like this again. It's pretty homemade looking, but at night, it'll look better. Hey - I have no shame - this should hang in my Hall of Shame, but it's gonna hang on my Patio of Oz, and I'm gonna be as proud as a kindergartner - as ADDIE said she is w/her first garden project w/mortar. THEN, when CALAMITY gets here next week, we'll grout the extension. THEN I have a gift of a birdbath pedestal, so I'll mosaic that and make a bowl for it. I'm also THINKING of a small frog pond water feature. THEN, I need to make another Fairy Castle, cuz I gave the one I made to my yard man. He LOVED it so much, I felt he should be rewarded for helping me put up the fountain extension. You see - I don't have time to die - got too much to do.

loribee and slowmedown, you are both soo busy! So am I ... mosaicing like mad onto 12"x12" squares of mesh, have been working so hard getting ready for the CowParade Austin cow; but still haven't heard anything, and now I find on the internet that two other mosaic artists have already been given the go-ahead and have started work on their cows, so I am down in the dumps, but still forging ahead and working on outer space nebulas and galaxies. I figure that I can make one extremely large wall hanging, or several smaller wall hangings, or several guitars, using what I've already created. When I hear something about the cow, I will immediately post on here. So, as to what I'm up to, I'm nipping, tumbling, sorting, creating outer space scenes, and dealing with summer camp, dance class, volleyball class, etc. etc. with the two granddaughters. Hot fun in the Summertime!

Ive been gardening and mosaicking has been on hold. Next Tuesday my friend Susan and I are going to mosaic the bricks for the corners of the new raised bed built by our garden club out of granite curbing. I've gathered together the tiles and I've got a bag of thinset in my trunk. So we are good to go.

And I'm taking a stained glass class. I'm making a tulip, but it is inside a square and about 12 pieces of glass. its fun, and I'm hoping I'll get better at cutting glass for my mosaic projects! Of course its great having a huge selection of glass to choose from, the class is at a stained glass store.

I have a wooden bowl that I want to mosaic, but I just can't find the right tess. And a concrete mushroom in the garden is calling to me. I like the psychidelic mushroom idea.

Kathy

I have not done any mosaic in over a month the last thing I did was a cross for my DSL whose father died and a wedding gift for my Dn.I have been working in the yard and making beaded butterfly s and wind chimes with spindles and beads .I also doing some now with silver ware and beads .

Oh boy, it sounds like there are so many awesome projects in the works. I can't wait to see pictures (hint hint). And NANATRICIA, I'd love to see your wind chimes and beaded butterflies. I don't think anyone here would mind that they aren't mosaics. They sound pretty!

SILVAMAE fingers crossed that you hear soon.

SLOW, your turns of phrase make me LOL. How nice of you to give your castle to your yard man! He's a very lucky guy. In fact, I think it's wonderful to hear that so many people here use their craft to make gifts for others.

I will take a couple pics of the butterfly and show you how it's coming along. I think part of my problem is that I thought I'd be able to whip them out in a day. I was way off base there, and part of what makes it seem difficult is that I wasn't expecting it to be that way. (does that make sense?) More to come....

The butterfly, so far....

Mostly, the difficulty was my belief that I might be able to do the top and bottom all in one sitting. Nosiree. And the edge of the wings were really hard because I didn't do the best job making sure the mortar was smooth there. In fact, I'm wondering on my next one if I should bother putting the rim of tiles around the edge. It makes it easier doing the top and bottom when I have something to butt up against.

And finally, the idea of using triangles as my pattern for the wings was nice from a design standpoint. When I think of a monarch's wings, I think triangles. But they are hard! Especially putting triangles along a curved edge and around circles.

So...we'll see how this one turns out once it's finished and mortared. My tiles aren't terribly even. I've got a couple that tilt and a couple sharp edges. I think I'll be more prepared for the next one now that I've done one. I won't be so cocky in thinking I could just whip them out, and I'll have more patience from the start.

I think its beautiful!
It would be nice to be able to "whip" something out for gifts or just to have a lot of the same things. An army of butterflies for example.
Good work.
Kathy

What I'm thinking is that this is gonna be an absolutely WONDERFUL project. Don't see any problems AT ALL. Looks neat and once it's grouted, you'll be soooooo surprised at how really beautiful your butterfly really is. Bravo. You are mastering the art of working w/the metal armatures and mortar. Take a bow!!!

Aww thanks. I think I've learned with these that I've got to go in little bits and stages: Mosaic the edge, let it set for a day. Mosaic the top of the body, let that set for a day. And so on. I messed up a lot of the tiles by trying to keep going while sections were still wet. On a piece like this, where I can't set it on a turn-table and spin it around, I've got to handle it a lot while I'm working with it. And that makes it really easy to accidentally stick my thumb on a spot and totally mess up something I worked hard to get nice and even. (grrrr) But now I know and can be better prepared to take it in baby steps next time around.

The butterfly looks great! Sometimes you can't see how well something is turning out in the middle of the process.

All the projects sound awesome and look forward to seeing them all.

I finally got off the bench and started a project which is posted on a new thread so I can track progress and ask questions.

That butterfly is turning out great!!

Can't wait to see this finished!

becky

Thanks! I appreciate the encouragement!

I just updated my blog with the latest picture of mosaic-on-mesh for the space cow.

Here is a link that might be useful: Silva's blog

Thought I'd share pics of the 3 crosses I completed and sold this week-end.

I now need to do one with a pink rose as the center for a gift for a friends mothers funeral. I give a cross instead of flowers. They can then put it at the cemetery if they can or keep it at home in their garden.

Oldcrafty, those are beautiful! You do seamless work. And what a nice change from flowers. I'm sure the recipients appreciate them!

Those are beautiful!!! I do that also.

The crosses are lovely. Very nice. So thoughtful as a sympathy/memory gift too.

I gotta say I am loving my stained glass class. I still suck at cutting, but now I'm more confident.
I'm putting the metal tape on, next time I solder.

Kathy

How beautiful, CRAFTY. Your work is sooooo neat and clean - your pieces fit together beautifully, and the edges are sooooooo smooth. What lovely work, and what an excellent idea to give them instead of flowers.

The pic in the center has a small ceramic angel embedded. I don't like the fact that it seems to fade into the background. Wish I would have chosen a different color grout. I was thinking gray might have looked nice. If I was to change the color of the grout now how would I go about doing that. These are definately outdoor pieces.

OLDCRAFTY, I don't know the answer to your question, but I think the cross you're referring to is pretty. It's a little more understated than the other two, which is nice. Some people like them that way.

oldcrafty - I did a forum search on "change grout color" and found a number of threads on the subject. Some of them are helpful and I've attached one here.

If you read through the attached thread there is a post on using watered down acrylic paint to stain the grout.

Your crosses are beautiful and I love the idea of a lasting gift in memory of a loved one.

Here is a link that might be useful: Changing grout color

Silva your space pieces are fantastic.
so have you gotten official word?
Kathy